BMO Centre, Canada’s largest convention centre, opens at Stampede Park

A long-awaited and visually striking Calgary project is now open.

BMO Centre at Stampede Park officially opened last week as Canada’s largest convention centre with 565,000-square-feet of expanded spaces after six years of construction and a $500 million price tag.

The building was designed by Stantec, Populous and S2 Architecture.

Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) CEO Kate Thompson, an architect herself, commented on the design of the new facility.

“Architecturally, it’s a game-changer for the convention industry. The design is more akin to a hotel lobby gathering space than a convention centre,” Thompson said. “It’s designed for an exchange of ideas, gathering and collision.”

She cited features such as an almost 300-square-metre skylight and a 21-metre fireplace as possible because of a change from the initial two storey design.

“The architects took a really large site that was anticipated to be two storeys and changed it to a stacked three storey structure with a 100,000-square-foot plaza. (The building has) as an arm outward in a sweeping gesture to the Stampede grounds which gives space back to Calgarians,” she said.

In addition to its striking visuals and use of space, Thompson said the building is also sustainable not just in terms of materials but also operations.

“A big part of the project, since it’s a large roof area, is to have huge cisterns onsite to capture and utilize rainwater,” she said. “We also have capacity for 30,000 people in one place, so we made use of composting and diversion of compost with both clean and dirty elevators and a huge composting facility.”

There were many complexities given the scale of the project, she added.

“We had to rebuild a full exhibit hall, demolish the Stampede Corral then build the addition,” Thompson said.

“We also had to make sure the venue was operational during construction. We understood building on a site that hosts the Calgary Stampede, one of the biggest parties in the summer in North America, meant the project would have limited delivery in its early years,” she said.

“It made a huge impact, in terms of site-specific construction realities.”

Despite the challenges, the $500 million project came in on time and on budget even though it was primarily built during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Thompson credited the successful execution of the project to extensive pre-planning along with a bit of luck.

“There were many opportunities for cost escalation and overruns. We made sure we made tough decisions along the way and never wanted to be without the ability to meet the budget,” she said.

“We also tendered it at a good time, just before cost escalations happened due to COVID. But we also held in reserve some value management to keep costs under budget.”

CMLC’s role was as development manager overseeing the entire project, including management of personnel and final delivery.

“It was a huge team over multiple years and funding was split three ways between the federal, provincial and municipal governments,” she said.

The facility hosts its first conference, the Global Energy Show, on June 11.

“With an increased ability to compete for world-class conventions and meetings thanks to the expanded BMO Centre, Calgary’s reputation on the global stage cannot be understated,” Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said at the opening ceremony. “The expanded BMO Centre is unique to Calgary, unique to the Calgary Stampede and unique to the industry. This is an architectural icon as well as a community gathering place, and Calgarians can be proud that we built this second-to-none facility right here in the heart of The Culture + Entertainment District.”